In the animated film, Rock Dog, Bodi (Luke Wilson) is the son of Khampa (JK Simmons), leader of the
TibetanMastiffs of Snow Mountain. The Mastiffs have
had one major job to perform on Snow Mountain: to guard the village’s
wool-making sheep from the
wolf Linnux (Lewis Black) and his pack. To avoid
distractions, music has been banned from the mountain, but when Bodi finds a
radio dropped by a passing
airplane, Bodi discovers his passion: to be a rock
‘n’ roll star. This means defying Khampa and heading into the city to locate
legendary reclusive musician Angus Scattergood (Eddie Izzard) and get him to
write a song that his hastily put together band can make a hit out of. But the
wolves are plotting to take over Snow Mountain. Will Bodi give up his rock star
dreams to save his home?

The musical
score of Rock Dog was created by Rolfe Kent, a British composer who has
created musical score for over fifty films. Working in his studio, he is
surrounded by a collection of musical instruments from all around the world that
rank from the exotic to the rather unusual, including the Indonesian percussion
instrument known as the angklung, an instrument initially used by the military
as a psychological weapon known as the shawm and the melodica. Kent is known
for the music he has created for Up in the Air,
Sideways, Labor Day,
Bad Words,
Election,
Mean Girls,
Legally Blonde,
Wedding Crashers and more, in
addition to the original title theme for Dexter.

According to
Kent, “The story needed to have that sense of the exotic- that we had left
Western society and gone somewhere different, somewhere mountainous, but not
country specific. To that end I explored different instruments and sounds. You
know, the music needed to have that interesting ethnographic colour, but still
sound like a movie score.” Despite that, and knowing nothing of the film, I
instantly thought of Tibetan monks as I listened to the orchestral score mixed
with exotic sound. This is explained By Kent: “He [Bodi] plays a Dramyen in
the film. I listened to that and also went through collections of Tibetan and
Mongolian flutes and horns and drums. Mongolian music has lots of very usable
elements that work well for a western ear. I wove some great wooden flutes into
the fabric of the music, and some Asian cymbals and
drums, and we had some
fascinating days recording all these incredible players live…I always loved the sound of Yo-Yo Ma’s sliding cello in
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and for Bodi’s father, Khampa, who is a
Kung Fu master after all,
I used solo cello in a similar style, with the softly sad glissandos of the
cello revealing his gentler side, and how he misses his son. This theme keeps
coming back each time we revisit Khampa.”

Thus, the
score of Rock Dog contains a great deal of exotic flutes, exotic drums
and strings. Every once in a while, you might hear a snippet of guitar. This
disappointed me a bit. Not to say that I didn’t enjoy the exotic music found on
this soundtrack, but the movie is called Rock Dog and there isn’t a single rock
track on the album. The closest we get is the jazz used to describe the
wolves. I really enjoyed the final track is an original song by Adam Friedman
called Glorious. The song speaks of a love that will surmount any
obstacle, so long as they are together – “We’ll grow old / And we’ll never be
alone / And no matter where we roam / We’ll be glorious.”

I enjoyed
the Rock Dog Soundtrack, though I do wish there was some actual rock
music to be heard on the album. The exotic sound speaks perfectly to the locale
of the film and the final track is an awesome song. The album is definitely
worth checking out if you just ignore the title.